


What To Do With Life When You're Supposed To Be Dead

by silveradept



Category: Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:45:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15655107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: Training Yuna on pistols is easier for Lightning than confronting the reality that both of them are more alike than Lightning wants to admit.





	What To Do With Life When You're Supposed To Be Dead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



"Rikku was right. You're a terrible shot."

Yuna's eyes narrowed, an acceptance of the challenge placed before her, and proceeded to fire off five shots, putting a bullet in the bullseye painted on each of the cans.

"And yet, when you concentrate, or when you get pissed off, you suddenly get a lot better," Lightning said, frowning. "Why?"

Yuna shrugged, and then re-sighted her pistol, shooting another can through the heart.

"Cans don't move, maybe?" she said.

Lightning flung a can into the air from behind Yuna, who promptly shot it through its heart before it hit the ground.

"Lucky shot?" Yuna said sheepishly, turning her head over her shoulder to grin at Lightning.

"No," Lightning said flatly, shaking her head. "What's really happening?"

Yuna shook her head in response. "It's nothing."

Lightning rubbed her temples. "You are very stubborn when you think nobody should be concerned, Yuna. I can't help you if you don't open up to me."

"It really is nothing. I just...how do you do it?"

Yuna turned around to face Lightning, the emotions she was trying to hide making her cheeks quiver.

"Put your gun away!" Lightning snapped. Yuna realized that although her gun was pointing down, it was still out of her holster.

"Sorry!" she said, engaging the safety and holstering the gun before collapsing in tears.

Lightning wasn't sure what to do in this situation. None of her recruits had cried at harsh words. Then again, most of her recruits also hadn't summoned her through time, through an ancient ritual that she had never heard of, to a place she hadn't known existed.

"We talked about this, Yuna," Lightning said, trying not to sound harsh. "A weapon out of its holster is intended to be used."

"Don't point your gun at anything you don't intend to kill," Yuna said between sniffles, before bursting into tears again. "But I can't!"

"You can't?" Lightning said. "I have seen you send plenty of fiends to the Farplane while we've been training together."

"Fiends are okay," Yuna said. "They've already died."

"Then what is it?"

"How....how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill...people." Yuna said, turning away from Lightning as she said the last word.

Lightning stopped what she was going to say.

"Hope..." she said quietly.

"Hope?" Yuna said, confused.

"One of my...friends," Lightning said, deciding the word made sense at that point, "asked me the same thing. Right after his mother had died. He blamed us for a lot of what happened after that. I...think he was right."

"What did you tell him?"

"First, I told him he needed to be strong. Being part of the Guardian Corps meant there were a lot of situations where showing weakness would get you and a lot of other soldiers hurt."

"Did you have a summoner to protect, then?" Yuna looked anxious. "Did Sin return after all?"

"No," Lightning said, remembering the stories Yuna had told her about the pilgrimage and the sacrifices. "The time you summoned me from doesn't have Sin. Not...really."

"You said you were a guardian. I...assumed," Yuna said, sounding embarrassed.

Lightning sat next to her. "We did protect people. And, well, like you, it turned out the people who we thought were the right ones to follow were lying to us. The maesters and the fal'cie weren't all that different, I suppose."

"But there were people opposed to you."

"Yes."

"And you killed them."

"Yes."

"How? They had families and friends and lives they were living. At least some of them had to be good people."

Lightning sighed softly, unpleasant memories stirring of that time.

"Many of them were doing what they thought was right," she said. "They came into the job knowing that at some point, they might be killed. As much as we could, though, we tried not to kill them. We thought what we were doing was right, too."

Yuna turned to look directly at Lightning, a pleading look on her face.

"But you didn't do it just because you thought you were right. Guardians are supposed to protect people, not hurt them."

Lightning flinched. Hope had said the same thing to her more than a few times while he was still grieving the loss of his mother. He'd meant it as hurtfully as he could muster at the time. Lightning had been too wrapped up in her own mission to realize how much damage she had done to everything. Being a l'cie had given her an excuse to not have to think about it, to claim there were more important things to do than to sit down and talk with Hope, or Snow, or anyone else, about how they were feeling about all of it.

"Yes, we are. And each of us was trying to protect someone that we cared for deeply. Family. Loved ones. Or at least, as close to that as we had at the time. We...we did a lot of terrible things because we wanted to protect them."

Yuna leaned over suddenly, giving Lightning a fierce hug.

"I...understand that," she said. "I wasn't supposed to know. I wasn't...I wasn't supposed to live."

Yuna lowered her head into Lightning's lap. Absently, Lightning began to stroke Yuna's hair, the same way she had seen Fang stroke Vanille's when Vanille was frightened.

"I've been living past when I was supposed to," Yuna said shakily. "I found a way to defeat Sin permanently, and for the first few years, I could be a celebrity and a sphere hunter and I could chase all the new things I hadn't been able to do while I was the summoner, and it kept the nightmares away for a while, but they're coming back. They're telling me that I'm supposed to be dead, and I'm not, and I don't _want_ to be."

"I...understand," Lightning said. "I'm supposed to be dead, too. We all refused to complete our Focus. We would have killed everyone. We should have been ci'eth. Instead, we're alive. And because of that, the universe is collapsing. Serah is out there...somewhere, trying to make it right, and I'm fighting an endless battle at the end of time against a man I can't kill, even while I'm here, talking to you."

Lightning shook her head a bit, smiling. Yuna reflected her smile back at Lightning.

"That's the first time I've seen you genuinely smile," she said.

"We're quite a pair, aren't we?" Lightning replied. "We're both living past the point we're supposed to have died, and I don't think either of us has a real clue about what we're supposed to _do_ about it."

"You could stay here with me." Yuna said. "You're not a fayth, even if I did somehow summon you from a chamber of the fayth. If I'm still a summoner, then I'm going to need a guardian. Someone who understands what it's like to be living beyond their death."

"No," Lightning said, shaking her head. "If I stay here for too long, I'm sure that I'm just going to get everyone hurt."

"Please," Yuna said, raising her head up, her eyes pleading. "Stay."

Lightning looked into Yuna's eyes, and then scowled.

"Fine," she said, helping Yuna back up to a sitting position. "I'll stay, but only until I'm certain that you know how to use those guns without hurting yourself."

Yuna smiled brightly.

"Okay. I'll make sure to be a terrible student."


End file.
